


Legends

by Cadhla



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Alternate Future, Bad Endings Abound, For the Love of Serenity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 04:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17676257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cadhla/pseuds/Cadhla
Summary: Long after the death of the legendary Cosmic Sailor Moon and founder of the Second Silver Millennium, a new terror rises behind the face of an old friend.  For everything repeats, and some cycles cannot be easily broken...For the love of Serenity.  Remember.





	Legends

"Do you think we're going to be legends?"

The question is simple on the surface, asked in the lilting, dreamy tone that Rina uses for everything that happens outside of a fight. She's a beautiful flower of a girl, the finest rose ever to grow in the gardens of Jupiter. No one had expected her to be chosen as her planet's protector. The good money had been on her younger sister, which would have put Sailor Jupiter a year behind her cohort, yes, but age differences among the Senshi are not unknown--have even helped to forge some of the strongest teams in the long history of the solar system--and Rina had always seemed singularly unsuited for the battlefield.

It was a concern that has been proven groundless over and over again. Rina may be a dreamer, but when she calls thorns up from the soil, she can destroy the enemies of Crystal Tokyo with as much efficiency as any soldier since the dawn of the second Silver Millenium. She is a soldier to her core, this dainty little figure with rose briars in her hair, and so her questions are given the same weight that is afforded to any of the others.

Masami is the first to answer, twisting a ribbon of flame between her fingers as she says, "I hope not."

"Why?" Rina frowns as she turns, the motion knocking flower petals from the rose-colored cascade of her hair. "Don't you want to be remembered?"

"Becoming a legend means fighting something so big, so terrible, that no one dares forget about it, lest it come again. I don't want that. I want to fight small battles, the kind you can defeat before dinner. The kind that never get anywhere near our Princess." Masami shakes her head. "She deserves better than to live in a time of legends. We all do."

"Don't you want to live up to the legacy of your planet? Don't you want children to argue over who gets to be Mars when they play at recess?"

Masami smiles. "No. Let them fight over Uranus and Neptune and Mercury, if they want to play at living now; they fight enough to be Mars when they play at living in the past. Mars is beloved enough without making me its latest legend. I am at peace with the Senshi who came before me."

"Easy to say, when they don't point at you and call you the weak one," murmurs Rina. The dreaminess is gone from her tone, replaced by something darker: bitterness. Regret.

Masami sits up straighter. "What are you saying?"

"That maybe Jupiter chose wrong." Rina stands, shedding more flower petals as she goes. "Maybe my planet would have been happier with someone who could be a legend."

"You don't know what you're--"

"I think she knows exactly what she's saying, don't you?" There's nothing dreamy about _this_ question. This question is bright, painful cheer, the kind of brilliance that blinds without enlightening. Masami stiffens.

 _There's time_ , she thinks, her hand inching toward her transformation wand.

When the heel slams down on her wrist, grinding the bones against the ground, she doesn't scream. She's proud of herself for that, for an instant. Then all the world is burning light, and she's screaming, and there's nothing to be proud of anymore. Nothing at all.

*

Natsuki rarely transforms. She rarely needs to. The Moon is at peace, and with it, the solar system; there are no dangers within or without for her to face. She still trains with her Senshi, and watches as they train with her mother's Senshi. She enjoys the feeling of strength and swiftness and, yes, serenity that comes with her transformation--but her time needs a Princess more than they need another soldier, and so she most often stands by her mother's side, head bowed in polite deference, trying not to think about the day when all this will be her responsibility. When she'll trade her name for a crown and become Queen Serenity, just like her mother before her, and her mother's mother before that, and back, and back, all the way to the beginning of everything.

Sometimes she wishes she'd lived in an earlier time, a time of legends, a time of battles that would actually need one more warrior for love and justice. But most of the time she's happy to be who she is, to be when she is, a daughter of the moon, nothing less and nothing more. Most of the time.

When Mars and Jupiter are ripped away from her--her first Senshi and her last, her courage and her innocence, without whom she barely knows how to stand--the loss strikes her like a physical blow. She falls to her knees in the hall, eyes blank, hands useless at her sides, the Silver Crystal pulsing in her chest. She can't breathe. She can't _breathe_. How is it that there's so much air in the world, so much air all around her, and _she can't breathe_?

Their absence is a hole in her heart. She barely finds her feet, barely finds the strength to grasp her locket and thrust her hand into the air. "Moon."

That's the beginning, yes. That's who she is. Sailor Moon, Moon Princess, Natsuki, daughter of Serenity, who will be Queen. She has it.

"Prism."

It hurts, it hurts so badly. She can't do this without them. She was never supposed to lose them. This isn't the time of legends. Her grandmother passed the crown in peace, fading as Serenitys always fade when their time is done, when the phase of the moon changes under their feet. Her Senshi are her handmaids, her protectors, not her peers. They're supposed to be here. They're not supposed to leave her.

"Power."

She's never had power. She's never needed power. She's a princess, pretty and perfect and cosseted and raised in love, in love, in lo--

The ribbons wrap themselves around her, pink and blazing and perfect, as they have always been, each time they wrapped themselves around a daughter of Serenity's line. They count from the second Serenity, the one who truly founded the line that may last from here until forever; the one who knew love was a gift, and not a weapon. There was no need for a Sailor Moon before the first Queen Serenity did her best to break the universe. Sailor Moon healed it. She has always been the Sailor of Healing, of Love, of Justice. Of Necessity. She is so much stronger than she knows. She has to be.

The ribbons draw tight and Natsuki is gone, Sailor Moon in her place, moonlight-colored hair drawn into high odango, formal gown replaced by a skirt short enough to fight in, shoes designed to absorb the shock of her jumps, top tight enough to support her spine and protect her internal organs. She gasps, glittering with the bright and terrible power of transformation, and runs. Her Senshi need her.

*

Kaito and Souma walk hand in hand along the shore of the lunar sea. Kaito hums to herself, and even untransformed, hears the sea humming sweetly back. Souma is silent, but watches her with sloe-eyed adoration. The wind that tangles in Kaito's hair might as well be Souma's fingers, pushing it away from the shorter Senshi's face, leaving every scrap of her clear to view.

"See something you like?" asks Kaito.

"Always," says Souma, and grasps her elbow, spinning her out, pulling her back, until Kaito is pressed against Souma's chest, the two of them tangled in each other's arms as they have been for so beautifully much of their lives. Yoshiko rolled her eyes when they first came to her for training, until she found ways to chain wind and waves together, to turn two Senshi would refused to be parted into a single hyper-efficient weapon. Not that they've ever been needed in that way; not that any of them have ever been needed in that way. They live in peacetime. They are Souma and Kaito before they are Uranus and Neptune, and they are happy. Sweet stars, they're happy.

Let the girls who stand closer to the Princess dream of becoming legends, of facing great dangers and carrying out noble missions. Saturn leads. Mars and Mercury advise. Jupiter restores. Pluto watches. And Neptune and Uranus love. What more could be asked of the protectors of a Princess?

The wind blows, carrying the scent of ice and emptiness. Souma stiffens. Kaito catches it immediately. She pulls back, frowning as she scans her lover's face.

"What is it?"

"I don't...I don't know." Souma looks over her shoulder. "Something's wrong."

"Wrong how?"

"Wrong we should transform. I think...I think the Princess needs us."

They are peaceful people. They are lovers walking on a shoreline. They are transformed and gone in a matter of seconds, leaving a circle of glass where they were standing, sand melted by the force of their panic. They do not run so much as they leap, verging on flight in the low lunar gravity as they chase down the source of the coldly blowing wind. They have to hurry. They have to _hurry_. The farther they go, the more the certainty grows, in both of them, that time is running short.

The scent on the wind becomes a raging battle as they grow nearer. Ice spires blast upward from the ground, encircled by the all-devouring shadows of Saturn's attack. Then there is a burst of silver glitter, and haste becomes panic. Their Princess is fighting. _Sailor Moon is fighting_. If their Princess has been moved to transform, then--

The golden chain wraps around Neptune's ankle and jerks her down, slamming her against the ground before she can find the breath to summon her attack. Then there is no breath, there is no body, there is nothing but--

_\--screaming, screaming, because she is alone, yes, she is alone here on this world without a name. How can Haruka have done this? How could she go? She didn't have to go, she could have fought, could have stayed, could have conquered death itself with Michiru at her side. They didn't need forever, but they should have had more time, they should have had centuries, eons, time, and time, and time. How dare she--_

"Neptune!"

The name is familiar. The voice is not. For the first time in a thousand years, Michiru opens her eyes and looks at the battlefield, confusion breaking her usual calm. A girl she doesn't know flings ice with geometric precision at Jupiter, while another girl with hair as white as seafoam swings Saturn's glaive in a defensive arc, holding Mars at bay. In the center of the battlefield, a girl in what looks almost like Usagi's fuku, but bleached, faded into pastels, fights...

Fights...

"Neptune?"

Michiru turns.

The girl in front of her is too young: that is the first of it. They're all girls on this battlefield, not yet women. This one, with her golden hair and her too-familiar fuku, is no different. She stares at Michiru with something caught between confusion and horror, and her eyes are a study in heartbreak.

"What did you do?" she asks. She takes a step forward. The wind whips around her, already rising, even though she has yet to shape it. "Where is Sailor Neptune? What did you _do_ to her?"

Understanding crashes down like a wave. "You're so young," Michiru whispers. "You found each other so young. How can she...I am so sorry. I shouldn't be here."

" _Where is Kaito_?!" demands this new Sailor Neptune, this sweet child, and raises her hands over her head. " _Tell me what you've done with her_!: 

Michiru is lost and confused and yes, afraid, but that doesn't mean she can stand by and let herself be assaulted. _"Deep Submerge_ ," she howls, and the pretender, the successor, is washed away in the face of a superior opponent.

It won't last long. No version of Sailor Uranus will ever be that easy to take down. Michiru gathers her strength and leaps, aiming for the source of this trial.

Sailor Venus--who remembers, who cannot age, who cannot die, who has never been released from service--is so deeply sunk into her battle against Sailor Moon that the blow to her side takes her by surprise. She hits the ground on her hip, sliding hard, and before she can get her balance back, Neptune is there, her elbow held against Venus's throat, a feral light in her eyes.

Minako smiles. " _There_ you are," she says, smug as Artemis with a bowl full of cream. "You're welcome. But you hit the wrong target."

"Put us back," snarls Michiru. "We're the dead. We're the past. Release us, and bring these children home."

"You're not the past," says Minako, still smiling. "You're a legend. Children play at being you, they fight over who gets to hold the mirror and the sword. Little girls dance in your name. You're the present, and the future, and you deserve to live in peacetime so much more than the simpering little fool who pretends to hold your title. Let me lead you home."

"I won't--"

"Before she died, Haruka said the only thing she'd regret was leaving you."

Michiru hesitates.

Selfishness is essential on the battlefield. There are those who would call it a failing, but without selfishness, what is there to lead the soldiers home? Michiru was always a poet of selfishness. She knew what she wanted. She knew how far she was willing to go in order to get it. She fought and she paid and she suffered and what was her reward? Being left alone, last one standing, broken-hearted and fading by inches. It's tempting. It's so tempting. She could have everything she ever lost, and all it would cost is one more enemy left to dust and ashes. She's been damned since she tempted Haruka out of her comfortable, safe life. What's one more damnation?

"No," says Michiru calmly, and punches Venus square in the nose. The golden Senshi reels. "No," Michiru repeats, and punches her again.

She will reflect, later, on the fact that she could have won, if only she hadn't looked so much like one of the enemy.

This new Uranus has her own attacks. "Wind Spiral Snare!" howls a voice that isn't familiar enough to avoid, and Michiru is lifted away from Venus, lifted into the air kicking and howling fury and frustration.

Venus pauses long enough to blow a two-fingered kiss, and then she's gone, a golden streak heading for the horizon, Jupiter and Mars behind her.

The wind cage shatters. Michiru drops to the ground on hands and knees. When she raises her head, it's no surprise to find Sailor Moon, this new, young, innocent Sailor Moon, standing over her with a scepter in her hand and vengeance in her eyes. The others are behind her, Mercury and Uranus and Saturn, youth and fury incarnate.

"What have you done to our friends?" demands Sailor Moon.

Oh, to be so young. Oh, to have so much to lose.

 _For the love of Serenity,_ thinks Michiru, and aloud, she says, "The legends are true," and oh, they are so like she was, and so different.

They have so much left to lose.


End file.
